Poised
by cocoartist
Summary: "Excuse me, are you wanting ze bouillabaise?" The girl's eyes snapped up and Fleur's breath hitched for a second. [Goblet of Fire AU, Fleurmione] [Two-shot]
1. castle

[Sick of all these people talking, sick of all this noise / Tired of all these cameras flashing, sick of being poised]

* * *

.

.

The old man - _the_ Dumbledore - stood and welcomed them to the enormous, hideous, freezing castle. It was exciting to see him in person, the draw of seeing the man who'd defeated Grindlewald, a man they learned about in endless lessons, only increasing the hype about spending a year at Hogwarts for the tournament.

Still, he didn't appear so terribly impressive, she thought, gazing in some disappointment around the old-fashioned hall. It was a magical castle, was it not? Was this some strange British sense of humour to keep it so cold and unwelcoming?

A dark-haired girl hissed at her, eyes flashing ferociously, and Fleur's interest was piqued.

She was still wearing the muffler that hid her Veela hair, so few people were affected but still… it was rather refreshing to be hissed at.

She watched the girl, studying her delicate features on the brink of blossoming… terrible hair and rather large teeth. She wasn't pretty, exactly, and yet behind the hair and the overbearing way she was talking to her friends there was something that held Fleur's gaze.

She pulled the muffler off (might as well get it over with, they'd get used to her eventually) and walked over to the girl's table.

"Excuse me, are you wanting ze bouillabaise?"

The girl's eyes snapped up and Fleur's breath hitched for a second. The dark eyes were even finer up close, thick dark lashes clustered around, sweeping the sharp curve of her cheekbone, but more amazingly they were clear, unglazed, unblinded - and yet a soft rose blush crept along those cheekbones, cheekbones just pushing up through the roundness of her youthful cheeks, her skin clear, the last hints of a sun-kissed glow still warming it.

She was perhaps fifteen, she thought, younger than she'd seemed from across the hall and Fleur… Fleur felt caught in that dark gaze, eyes older than her face and tremblingly, soul achingly innocent at the same time.

"Yeah you can have it," one of her companions said and the other girl dropped her eyes, staring in horror at her purple-faced, gurgling friend.

"You 'ave finished wiz it?" she asked the girl, hoping to hear her voice again, but it was the other boy, the black-haired one who could speak, who answered and she gave up and returned to her table.

/

She didn't see the girl again for weeks, but she saw her black-haired friend. He'd somehow snuck his way in to the tournament - just a child! He was shorter than his friend, the dark haired girl, and younger looking too. He looked around twelve, but they said he was fourteen. It was a disgrace.

("'E cannot compete. 'E is too young," she'd told the idiotic Ministry employee whose eyes had swept her body in that crawling, sickening way that men had).

She'd been furious initially, first because he'd looked so young next to Cedric and Viktor and then as the adults fought, furious because her own chance was made more distant with his addition. She - she who had so much more to prove, the only witch, written off all her life because she was blonde and she was beautiful, by men and women alike. Even her own mother had threatened to cut her off when Fleur had confessed her terrible secret.

She needed that thousand galleons to set up her own life if her family did choose not to stand by her. Veelas had rules her mother had said. And even if they did not… it was a great deal of money and her family was not rich. The glory alone would be worth it, though.

Fleur sighed in irritation. She would show them all that she was more than a pretty Veela girl. She was more witch than any member of her family before her, far far more powerful and clever than she'd ever been credited for. _Je vais le faire_ , she whispered as she left the awful wand-weighing ceremony. J _e suis Fleur Delacour, je peux tout faire._

/

When she did see the girl, not just across the dining hall, it was in the Library. Fleur had gone to explore - the Hogwarts library was even more famous than its Headmaster - and she'd seen the girl tucked away in a corner, wild dark hair spilling down her back as she bowed her head over a parchment so long it almost touched the floor. As she watched, a drop of ink spilled across the paper and the girl vanished it without seeming to notice her own magic. Powerful, then.

Fleur sniffed derisively; you wouldn't catch anyone at Beauxbatons dead using anything as inconvenient as a quill and parchment. They used fountain pens, like sensible creatures, and tidy books with thick creamy paper.

She was the boy's, though, the paper said.

The girl rolled her shoulders and bit her lip as though in pain. Her posture was as bad as her hair; as though she was somehow uninterested in her own physicality. She could be quite stunningly pretty, as the newspapers had said, and yet she chose not to be.

A starry-eyed boy dazedly tried to speak to her, and Fleur retreated to a dark corner, wishing she'd brought her muffler to hide her silvery blonde hair.

/

A few days later, Fleur was back in the Library, desperately ransacking books on dragons. To her surprise, the girl turned up in the same section not long after she had arrived. Hermione flushed, eyeing her and Fleur pretended to concentrate very hard on _Defending Againste Dragons_ , which was proving as unhelpful as _Willefull Wormes_ had been.

"Er, excuse me. Sorry. Are you done with that?" the English girl asked, pointing at the other book.

Her voice was haughty and slightly embarrassed, as though she'd been caught in a wrong-doing and was trying to brazen it out. She must be helping her attention-seeking little boyfriend then. Fleur scowled.

"Yes, but eet iz _useless_. 'Ere."

She looked as pale and worried as Fleur herself felt, and the scowl faded.

"Zey 'ave taken all the useful information away I theenk," she added softly.

After all, he was so very young. Perhaps some help would keep him alive. Fleur was rewarded with a worried smile.

"I thought that too. This competition is _mad_."

They were speaking in whispers, but Fleur still scanned the aisle. Apparently all the champions knew about the dragons, but she still didn't want to be disqualified for cheating.

To her embarrassment, the troop of boys that had started to trail her around the castle slouched in and sent longing looks over. Hermione's face darkened and she walked off without another word.

/

The following day, Fleur was treated to a scornful look from the brunette girl as she hurried out of the Library shortly after Fleur's own fan club, noisy and uncouth as they were, walked in. She sighed, desolate. It wasn't _her_ fault that idiot men lurked around, waiting for her to send them an inviting look or smile or whatever it was they expected. It wasn't even for her, really, just her ridiculous Veela heritage; heritage that, yes, she was largely proud of but that had the _cruellest_ side. She wished she explain to someone how lonely it was to be liked only for the magic in your hair and in your blood and never for yourself.

/

Every time the stupid boys followed her into the Library the dark-haired girl left and Fleur began to wonder if she'd ever get another chance to talk to her. But the worry of the looming first task took over. She couldn't sleep, couldn't eat and she wondered over and over again if it was worth it.

She caught sight of her after the task, but dizzy with relief and exhaustion - she'd made it, they'd all made it - she hardly noticed her other than to note the other girl's unhidden concern and exhaustion as she hurried into the tent to see her friend; she'd got the Potter boy through, Fleur supposed. It was… admirable.

She was clear headed enough, though, to see that the girl was no more romantically interested in Harry Potter than she herself was. Hermione had run away crying happily when the ugly red-haired boy had been nice to the other child and Fleur had realised, with a shock of happiness she could feel even over the exaltation of surviving the dragonfire, that Hermione and Harry were just friends after all that the papers had said.

/

Men were easy to deal with. It was clear when they wanted you, they were relatively straight-forward and she'd been dealing with them since an uncomfortably young age when her Veela inheritance had sparked into being around the same time as the hair had sprung up on her legs and underarms and zizzi. She'd been eleven.

Women, though, women were harder. She'd never actually had to ask one out before, or ask anyone out in fact. The only girl she'd ever kissed, after many ultimately unsatisfying attempts to enjoy male company, had seduced her.

It didn't help that Hermione found her fan club so irritating that she often left the Library in frustration. Fleur sat, gazing longingly at the girl night after night, hidden away in a corner of the Library, trying to work up the courage to ask her to the Yule Ball. It was, on top of the possibility of rejection, a terrifying declaration to take a girl with her.

She'd been asked and asked by men from all three schools, of course. Accosted in the endless draughty corridors of the hideous castle, with its lack of comfort and elegance, disregard for its own students safety… Fleur hadn't missed that Dumbledore had been the only Head not to warn his students of the first task. It had been a servant. She'd made tentative friends with Cedric Diggory, who'd recovered rather more quickly from her creature heritage than most men of seventeen. Reading some of his lesson notes had made Fleur more sure than ever that this was a terrible school… and yet it held Hermione.

One day, sick of waiting, she dropped as elegantly as she could into the seat opposite Hermione. It was late and the Library was almost deserted; she'd never have a better moment.

"I don't know what the egg does," the other girl said, not looking up. "Harry won't talk about it."

Fleur sniffed with annoyance.

"Zat is not why I 'ave come," she said, wishing the girl would look up and grateful that she hadn't.

The dragon seemed less terrifying, compared to this moment.

Hermione's long lashes fluttered against the warm, fawn coloured skin. Up close, Fleur could see the slight circles beneath her eyes, the lightest dusting of freckles that crept over her straight nose, the way her face had sharpened in just the last month, her cheekbones jutting up beneath that soft soft soft looking skin. She looked up.

"I er - I wanted to ask eef you," she huffed, "Sorry I am - zis is so 'ard. We 'ave not been introduced. I am Fleur."

The girl's face brightened and Fleur was rewarded with a sweet smile. She had fixed her teeth and in doing so and transformed her whole face; what had been eye-catching before had blossomed somehow into beauty.

"Hermione. Je parle française, Fleur. C'est plus facile?"

"Oui, mais… je veux poser un question dans ta langue. Would you come to ze ball wiz me?"

"Me?" Hermione asked, flabbergasted. Her cheeks turned that dusky rose pink, though, and her eyes sparkled.

"Why do you sink I 'ave been coming all the time to the bibliotheque? I wanted to speak to you before but… 'eet is so 'ard. I 'ad to find ze courgage."

The other girl looked simply astounded, but quite pleased and she bit her pretty pink lip with those perfect teeth and nodded.

"How did you know?" she asked, redder than ever. "That I was… you know."

"I deed not, but I 'oped. Zat first night, I came across because I wanted to speak to you - do you remember?"

"You noticed me then?"

"Oh, yes," Fleur teased, her confidence returned. "'Ow could I not? You scolded me. Eet was very… charming. And zen you blushed when I came over but you deed not… 'Ow do you say? You were not in ze trance. I 'ave a little bit of Veela but you do not sense eet."

"No, I didn't believe you were at first. How does it work?"

They sat and talked until the strange and terrifying Librarian (who, Hermione said, closed the Library on whim each night when she chose) threw them out.

Fleur floated back to the ship. Hermione hadn't even hesitated… to be seen with another girl.

/

Fleur talking to Cedric outside of the Great Hall a few days later as Hermione and her friends walked in. The girl's smile lit up her face and Fleur couldn't control the burst of joy that, unfortunately, translated into a waft of Veela magic that turned every man in the vicinity's head.

"Willyoutotheballwithme?" Hermione's red-headed friend stuttered, as the door closed behind Hermione and Harry.

Fleur looked at him in disgust. It's just the magic, she wanted to scream. It isn't me you all want.

She walked away without replying.

/

"And then he said, 'Neville's right - you are a girl.' Can you believe that? And he didn't believe that someone had asked - I mean it's not as if I'd go with him anyway, or maybe as friends but, still."

They were huddled away in the most secret corner of the Library, Hermione's dark eyes flashing with indignation.

"I was going to tell them, but now I won't bother, not after a reaction like that. Honestly."

"'E is just very young and a little stupid I theenk. Tell me about the charm you wanted to learn, though."

"Oh, yes - they don't teach them here, but I read somewhere that you learn to weave charms? It sounds absolutely fascinating."

She was earnest and fiercely intelligent, and picked up the first simple knots of a protection charm even faster than Fleur had. It was a perfect evening, just spending time getting to know each other, hidden away from prying and inconvenient eyes.

.

.

.

* * *

(lyrics are Halsey's and there's loads of actual JK Rowling owned book dialogue etc. - don't own, all credit to etc.)

I've wanted to write this for a very long time. Next chapter: the Yule Ball. It'll probably just be two but we'll see!

I've never written this paring before, so I'm very nervous about it. Do let me know what you thought.


	2. pretty mouth shut

_I'm headed straight for the castle /They've got the kingdom locked up_

 _And there's an old man sitting on the throne that's saying I should probably keep my pretty mouth shut_

 _(_ Halsey _\- Castle)_

* * *

Hermione could hardly hold her uncharacteristic giggles back as she pulled her pale pink pyjamas on. The soft silk made her think of Fleur's skin, and she bit her lip, blushing.

It was a delicious, terrifying secret. She was sky-high, floating; she'd never never imagined the French girl would even glance at her twice, let alone ask her to the Ball! She longed to tell _someone_ , but she couldn't face all the questions and shocked looks that would inevitably spill out. It was too new, too fragile, too _surprising_.

She'd never expected to like women, not really. She'd grown up like every other little girl, with ballet and music and horse-riding and her sensible, married parents, and dresses and stories about princesses marrying princes, and never other princesses. And she'd had crushes on boys, too, or men really - Oliver Wood and Gilderoy Lockhart - and then Fleur Delacour had walked over to her table and asked for the bouillabaisse and Hermione had suddenly noticed a lot of _other_ feelings too.

It hadn't been a _shock_ , exactly, more a moment of everything suddenly making sense. But she'd resigned herself to admiring the magnificent blonde from afar. Just like every man in the castle.

Now, the joy of the thing burned at her tongue. Who'd have known that behind the hauteur, that Fleur was sweet and soft and kind and clever and brave and, Hermione suspected, surprisingly vulnerable?

She could tell Ginny, she decided. And that would be a good test, because she wasn't sure how it would be _received_. It didn't matter, not really; she was used to being an outcast, but still it would be good to be prepared.

.

.

Ginny, as it turned out, thought the whole thing was marvellous. It took a while for Hermione to convince her that it wasn't a trick (six brothers left their scars) but once she had, Ginny was quite overcome. They huddled together at lunch, whispering happily. She was, she said, going with Neville, who'd asked Hermione that morning and rather bravely Ginny not long after. Nevillie: sweet, clumsy, unHarryish Nevillie.

Ginny, a third year, was just pleased to be asked.

"Do you think I can still wear my dress robes?"

"What _do_ you mean?"

"Well I was going to wear that blue dress, I showed you, but what if I should wear… I don't know. Something masculine?"

"Well… you could? But I think Fleur's probably noticed you're a girl, Hermione," Ginny teased, and Hermione smacked her arm.

.

.

.

 _Hermione,_

 _Would you like to study together in the Library this evening? I will be in the little alcove behind the section on dragons after dinner._

 _Yours,_

 _Fleur_

.

.

She walked up to the tower to get her books after spending a dinner listening to Parvati and Lavender talk about how handsome Cedric Diggory was, which had put in her quite a bad mood. Ron and Harry had been notably absent, so she'd left early, unable to relate to the other girls' conversation at all. Besides, Ron had been behind her on the way to the Hall but he'd never actually gone in and she wanted to check he was alright before she went to the Library. It was extremely unlike him to miss a meal after all.

"Why weren't you two at dinner?" she asked, spotting them sitting with Ginny in a corner of the Common Room, miles from the fire. They looked ashen-faced, as though something terrible had happened, but were laughing - slightly hysterically - and she wondered what sort of trouble they'd got into now.

"Because - oh, shut up laughing, you two - because they've both just been turned down by girls they asked to the ball!"

The boys stopped laughing rather suddenly, and Hermione relaxed. Not in trouble, then.

"All the good-looking ones taken, Ron?" she asked, snidely. "Eloise Midgen starting to look quite pretty now, is she? Well, I'm sure you'll find someone _somewhere_ who'll have you."

Eloise was actually a sweet looking girl, with an adorably crooked nose. She was just _shy_. Ron was an arse. And - more to the point - Eloise thought Ron was marvellous. She'd told Hermione in one of the study groups they both attended - study groups Ron and Harry would rather be seen dead than even think about.

The gangly red-head stared at her suddenly, and Hermione wondered if he'd noticed she'd bound her hair back for once.

"Hermione, Neville's right - you _are_ a girl…"

"Oh, well spotted," she snapped. Honestly, he could be _such_ an arse.

"Well - you can come with one of us!"

She stared at Ron. Why on earth would she want to go with him, when she was going with the most glorious person in the entire country - world, probably? Did he really think she'd settle for going with a friend when she'd been asked romantically by not only the girl she'd been dreaming about for two months but two Ravenclaws, a boy from Durmstrang, and Neville? (All but Terry had asked after Fleur had, which made her wonder if some of the girl's magical allure had rubbed off somehow).

"No, I can't."

"Oh, come on," he wheedled, "we need partners, we're going to look really stupid if we haven't got any, everyone else has…"

She could feel her cheeks heating up with fury at his disgusting selfishness, but kept her voice calm.

"I can't come with you because I'm already going with someone."

"No you're not! You just said that to get rid of Neville!"

Out of the corner of her eye Hermione saw Ginny clutch her face, an agony of horror at her brother's lack of tact.

"Oh _did_ I? Just because it's taken you three years to notice, Ron, doesn't mean no one _else_ has spotted I'm a girl!"

"Ok, Ok, we know you're a girl. That do? Will you come now?"

Compared to every single one of the other invites she'd had, this made even - even - Goyle, probably, although thankfully she couldn't attest, look gentlemanly. She sucked in a breath, shaking with rage. He was a _terrible_ friend sometimes!

"I've _already told you_ , I'm going with someone else."

She was, she reflected as she stormed off to her dormitory to get her book bag, rather proud that she hadn't added _you selfish, insufferable arse_! at the end. She couldn't wait to tell Fleur.

.

.

The day of the ball finally arrived, with a flurry of fresh snow so perfect it couldn't be natural.

Hermione had spent most of the week leading up to Christmas with Fleur, hidden away in the most secret nooks of the unusually-busy castle. The boys assumed she was doing the homework they were putting off, and so asked no questions, apparently grateful she wasn't nagging them to join her.

Unlike Harry, Fleur had been working hard on trying to solve the secret of the Second Task, but like Harry she had chosen to take a few days off before Christmas to relax. So they grew together, opening up shyly at first and then becoming more and more comfortable with each other; soft kisses growing hungrier as the week progressed.

"Shall I wear 'zees ones or 'zees?" Fleur asked, holding up two spectacular diamond earrings, which appeared identical at first glance. Hermione giggled and realised for the first time she was having _fun_ getting ready with a girl.

"They look the same to me," she admitted, still breathless every time she looked at the part-Veela.

Fleur was always beautiful. The kind of beautiful that stopped traffic and glowered from the front pages of magazines and movie posters, magnificent and glamorous. But tonight, in her room in the Beauxbatons carriage, hair still damp and wearing a dressing gown, she was so touchably _human_ Hermione could barely stand it.

She'd come over to the carriage to change so they could walk into the ball together. A show of solidarity in a world neither of them was sure would accept their relationship.

Of course, it also meant Hermione could avoid Lavender and Parvati's well-meaning attempts to help her get ready. She had a far superior assistant for that: Fleur had offered to teach her the mysterious charms that let French witches look as though they were wearing no makeup while looking absolutely ravishing.

Hermione wasn't stupid; she knew how to do some simple makeup spells and applying Sleekeazy's Hair Potion was just a matter of waiting half an hour before washing it out. She rarely bothered, more focused on proving herself as a witch than learning how to be pretty, but a ball was a different thing altogether.

"We 'have spells and potions you do not use in zis country for 'hair and skin and such zings. Eet is ridiculous but zey actually taught us at Beauxbatons… zey are nevair written down but passed on through families and at zee school. My grandmere says beauty can be both shield and hex - if you know 'ow to wield it," Fleur had said after she'd invited Hermione to get ready with her.

"I'm not beautiful, not like you," Hermione had protested. Fixing her teeth had given her more confidence, but she was only fifteen and the mirror pointed out more flaws than strengths.

"No one ees beautiful like me," Fleur had conceded, "but _you_ are beautiful like yourself like 'Ermione Granger. Very beautiful, I sink. Look at zis skin and your hair, eet is _amazing_ and your eyes… zey are warm like whisky on a winter day. You choose to 'ide it because you sink you cannot be seen as clevair and beautiful, but zat's not always true. Eef you want people to notice, you just 'ave to signal a leetle."

Now, Fleur smiled at Hermione as she cast a spell on her hair that, unfairly, left it dry and perfect in mere moments, and held the earrings up again, turning to the mirror.

"Ah, you are right, 'Ermione. Zey are almost identical. Right I weel just…" she gestured to the robes and Hermione turned around, both blushing slightly.

After that, it was Hermione's turn to sit at the dressing table. Fleur, glorious as a goddess in steel grey, stood behind her as Hermione twisted her hair up into a chignon knot.

"A little furzer to the left, I theenk," Fleur said, and Hermione watched, impressed, as her unbiddable hair obeyed the french girl's wand. A few strands slipped free to fall elegantly round her face.

.

.

They made an elegant pair, even Hermione could see, despite her nerves and the that as they stood for a photograph on the stairs of the carriage, a great gilt-edged mirror behind Madame Maxine reflecting something of how they seemed.

Hermione looked sophisticated, the soft periwinkle blue setting off what remained of her summer tan and her sleek, dark hair. Her eyes stood out, gleaming with happiness, features gently enhanced by some of those clever French spells; an imperceptible but vast improvement with just a few wand flicks. Quite unlike Muggle makeup.

If she was elegant and dark, the taller girl was a gleaming tower of light. Diamonds glittered at her wrists, dazzling earrings brushing her shoulders. Her silver-blonde mane was swept back on one side, bearing the the curve of her neck. The only colours were her softly flushed cheeks, her blue eyes, almost navy in the soft lighting, and the rosy bow of her lips.

The greatest surprise and the true magic of Fleur's beauty was not that it overshadowed Hermione, as it usually did when she stood next to someone, but that her radiance spilled over.

They were the last to leave, and the Headmistress smiled protectively at her Champion before escorting them up to the castle. The long path was lit with twinkling fairy lights, the magical sort that floated around, and danced on leaves, and sulked if they weren't admired. They walked up to the school in silence, but when Fleur took her hand she realised the other girl was as scared as she was, perhaps far more.

"Are you alright?" she whispered.

Fleur just nodded.

"Eet is not so bad to be different," Madame Maxine said in her booming voice, making both girls jump as it cut through the dark. Hermione thought she would probably know.

.

.

She'd known it would be a bit of a surprise, of course. She'd looked forward to it as much as she'd dreaded it. But Hermione hadn't anticipated the half-beat of silence before the whispering as she walked into the Entrance Hall on Fleur's arm. They were late, the proud Headmistress had taken too many pictures and most people had already gathered, impatiently waiting for the doors to open to the Great Hall.

Fleur was used to the slackened jaws and temporary trances men went into as she passed. Most of the boys at Hogwarts were used to her normally but dressed up and filled with the adrenaline of nerves she couldn't contain her Veela effect.

"Is it always like this?" Hermione murmured, shocked. She'd seen them before of course, but not standing next to Fleur.

"Eet is amped up a leetle today… and of course zey are not just staring at me now."

Hermione met Ron's eyes and felt all the triumph in the world, at his glazed-eyed shock. But it faded, as his expression changed from shock to sadness to cold and blank and he turned away to offer Padma Patil his arm.

"Champions over here, please," Professor McGonagall called out and they made their way over.

Was it because she'd come with a girl? Hermione wondered, scared suddenly. Did the Wizardly World have the same, or even worse, prejudices as the Muggle one? She'd thought not, after Ginny. She'd kept it a secret for different reasons; not least of which was the thought of walking into the ball and surprising everyone who'd written her off as a swot.

She'd done that, if Harry's face was anything to go by as they stood by the doors with everyone filing past them. He was fairly immune to Fleur, far stronger-willed than Ron, and it was Hermione's face that had sent his eyebrows shooting towards his messy black hair.

She smiled at him, allowing her teeth to flash out between her lips in a way she hadn't since she was a child. It was good to smile fully again; it made the smile feel more real.

"Hi Harry! Hi Parvati!"

Parvati's jaw dropped to match Harry's but then she smiled back, and something in Hermione's stomach settled.

"No wonder you didn't want to get ready with us," she said, and that was that.

Walking through the hall as everyone clapped was the most excruiatingly awkward experience of Hermione's life. Anyone who hadn't noticed that Fleur Delacour had brought a girl ( _that bookworm Gryffindor, you know, Potter's friend)_ would now.

Once they sat down, Fleur began to complain. By now, Hermione had realised it meant she was nervous and she took her hand under the table.

"Are you glad you asked me?" she said, to distract the blonde.

"Eef I'd brought one of zose boys," Fleur replied fiercely, "zey wouldn't hear a word I say. Zey see the beauty, but you see me for 'oo I am, so yes, 'Ermione, I am glad."

"Me too," Hermione said. "I can't imagine tonight without you. What are you going to eat?"

Fleur wrinkled her nose as she read through the menu.

"I know," Hermione agreed, "meat, stodge, or both. It's always like that, except the first night you came."

"I don't know 'ow you keep your figure," Fleur said, her eyes lingering as they traced the line of the dress. "But you would be just as beautiful ten pounds 'eavier of course."

Hermione laughed, and settled for the chicken.

She'd grown used to the eyes on them by the time they danced; and after all Fleur had taught her all the steps over the last week. They would, she had said, be enough of a spectacle.

But as they glided across the floor, the taller girl's arm strong around her waist, she noticed they were not the only same-sex couple to take to the floor.

There were no harsh looks or harsh words; envy, even lust, but nothing worse until Fleur went to find drinks and Hermione Ron and Harry.

"It's so hot, isn't it?" she said, trying to draw Ron out of his mood. "Fleur's just gone to get some drinks."

He gave her a withering look.

"Hasn't she asked you to call her petal yet?"

"What's up with you?"

"If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you."

But she pushed him, and he lashed out, accusing her of fraternizing with the enemy, and falling for Veela charm, and being used as a spy against Harry.

"You asked her to the ball, or have you forgotten that?" she hissed. "And I would never betray Harry, not that she's asked a thing about him except to say it's monstrous they made him stay in the tournament and she _hopes he's alright_."

She could hear her voice getting shriller and shriller.

"Well she probably knows you're a swot and just wants you to help with the egg," he said scathingly. "I suppose that's where you've been all week, putting your heads together in the library -"

"Oh no, Mr Weasley," the throaty, accented voice came from behind her, "we 'ave much more interesting reasons to - 'ow deed you put eet? - put our 'eads togezzer."

Fleur. Hermione relaxed as the bare skin of their arms touched.

"I'll see you later, Harry," she said and let Fleur lead her away.

Half an hour later, she was backed up against a wall behind a rose bush, Fleur's lips on hers, her left fingers digging into Hermione's hip and her right pressed over the periwinkle-blue silk at the apex of her thighs. It was the furthest they'd gone, but it wasn't enough. She clutched at the soft curve of the older girl's ass pulling her desperately closer.

It was terrifying and exhilarating and she'd never felt more alive.

Then, so loud they fell out of the bush in shock, came Madame Maxine's voice.

"'OW DARE YOU?"

As Hermione scrambled up, she saw Harry and Ron gaping at her. She shrugged with a wry grin and, taking Fleur's hand, pulled her away from the ensuing argument between Hagrid and the Beauxbatons headmistress.

"Where are we going?" Fleur asked, breathless and giggling.

Hermione thought for a moment, distracted by the terrible outdoor decorations.

"The greenhouses?" she suggested. "No one'll be there."

Fleur wrinkled her nose but nodded, letting Hermione lead her around the side of the castle.

Being alone seemed far more important than dancing at that moment.

And it was worth it. Their kisses began again gently, fanning the embers of their interrupted desire until it was raging. Fleur, stronger than she looked, picked Hermione up onto the bench, sending a potted plant crashing to the ground. They froze for a moment; it could be anything. Mercifully it was nothing so dangerous as a Mandrake and then the other girl was sliding her underwear down and pressing her mouth to Hermione's pussy, fingers arching up into her, and she was gripping onto the side of the bench, gasping and soaring up to somewhere new, somewhere _magical_.

It didn't take long.

"In French," Fleur told her smugly, "we call that la petite morte."

Hermione choked with laughter, surprised to find herself tearing up a little.

"Ah, ma petite, eet is a lot the first time weeth someone. Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Hermione said, resting her head on the blonde's shoulder. "More than. Do you want -"

"Not thees time. Eet's enough for you, tonight, I theenk."

.

.

Hermione wandered back to the Tower in a daze after the ball. They'd returned, and danced - mostly together, but with some other people - until it ended. Bodies pressed as close as was proper in public, unable to contain their shared joy in each other. She felt as though she were walking on air, a bubble of joy in her chest.

It burst, though, when Ron rounded on her in the Common Room. It was a fight for the ages, and she was all the more vicious for her confusion at his anger.

It was only halfway through that he revealed the source of his anger.

"We're your _best friends_. Why did you never tell me? I _asked your date_." He looked mortified at the memory and she softened.

Ron wasn't angry that she had gone with Fleur. He was hurt she hadn't told him. And, perhaps, under that, embarrassed at his own reaction to her having a date that wasn't him, now he realised how far off the mark such a thing would be.

Beauty was a weapon to be wielded, but she hadn't meant to hurt her friend.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," she said, softly, as Harry clambered through the portrait hole. "I was angry you didn't believe I really had a date… I didn't… it was a surprise to me that I could feel like this about a girl."

The redness receded from his face, and he nodded.

"Not just any girl, though, is she?"

Hermione grinned, proudly.

"No," she agreed, "not just any girl."

.

.

* * *

Well, that took a while. Sorry... I hope this is everything you all hoped and dreamed of. It's finished - for now.

Let me know what you thought (and if I made any mistakes because I'm three glasses of wine in)

love

A

PS any _unsphere_ readers - soon. Promise. 2,000 words into the new chapter.

PPS you can find me on tumblr at **cocoartistwrites**.


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